Forum: F-35 Lightning II

I'm interested to ask on the cusp of 2012, with all the development that has gone into the F-35, and the main configuration they are settling on, how competitive is this plane going to be in it's combined air interdiction/bombing role when compared to Russian & Chinese aircraft under development? Can it be upgraded to match them, or is the airframe and design permanently inferior?

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The F-35 is the only stealth fighter/attack aircraft in the world and right now so it is in a class by itself. If you think the F-35 needs upgrades then you obviosly don't have an understanding of the technology onboard the F-35.

topgun22 wrote:

..Can it be upgraded to match them, or is the airframe and design permanently inferior?

"Permanently inferior"? Maybe you can elaborate?

Well, if production goes forward on the F-35, it will be decades before anyone will have a force to match it in quality, and even longer before anyone can match it in quantity; by which time, we'll already have something else for them to match.

topgun22 wrote:

I'm interested to ask on the cusp of 2012, with all the development that has gone into the F-35, and the main configuration they are settling on, how competitive is this plane going to be in it's combined air interdiction/bombing role when compared to Russian & Chinese aircraft under development? Can it be upgraded to match them, or is the airframe and design permanently inferior?

The F35 is more agile than a F18. The flight envelop is not yet completely opened. At the moment the agility falls between a F16 and F18.
A F35A pulls 9 G, does a F18 pull this?
Flight characteristics of the F35 are almost the same as a F16, reason why four F16’s function as training jets.

Concerning agility, matching Chinese or Russian aircraft, suppose Australia has to rely on the F35, more agile, in stead of the F18.
What jet is permanent inferior do you think?

If you are comparing the F-35 to the T-50 and J-20 they are not really the same kind of jet, it's like comparing the F-16 to the SU-27. The F-35 is much lighter than either of those and will be cheaper to operate and maintain, while being carrier capable which I don't see in the future of either T-50 or J-20. The F-35 will never have the range of those bigger jets, but it may be able to best them in a fight.

It remains to be seen what sort of range the bigger foreign jets will have.. They may carry a bit more fuel but they will also be heavier which will impact range. The F-35 comfortably outranges its legacy predecessors.

Raise your hand if you think that either the Russians or the Chinese will do a better job with stealth or electronics on their first try than the Americans who have like three decades of a head start.

The A2A scenario is that the PAK-FA or J-20 is going to fly around until AMRAAMs appear out of thin air. The "red force" fighter will evade these missiles and then return to still not seeing any F-35s.

The upgrade the F-35 needs is a new missile and it's going to get that slightly after the Sino/Russian fighters become truly operational.

True. The Russians and Chinese have little experience on hand and as such likely don't even know what they are talking about when it comes to VLO technologies. The New missile will be the JDRADM/NGM. It features technologies that are already quite mature in development and as such shouldn't be too "risky" in developing even further and integrating into a new missile. As such it is indeed quite possible that F-35 will have JDRADM by the time T-50 and J-20 actually enter service since the Russians and Chinese will likely have A LOT of issues to have to work out before their planes are ready for IOC.

Better yet, after about 3-6 months of F-35 integration, ANY F-35 (worldwide) will be able to use them without the need for a new Block upgrade (Thank You UAI Smile

)

Which only makes the world a much safer place.

Thanks Spudman. Yes that is a good point.

There are two F-35 programs, hardware and software.

The hardware problem is that while the parts work they don't last and testing is causing redesigns of critical parts of the structure that will then need to be retested as part of the aircraft. The result is that every single F-35 built for the next few years will at some point need to be torn down and rebuilt. (This is extra critical for the very weight sensitive F-35B, but at least we ain't building none of those for now.)

The software problem is that the software has yet to be written, much less tested. But at least software patches can be quickly applied to the entire fleet with minimal downtime.

topgun22 wrote:

I'm interested to ask on the cusp of 2012, with all the development that has gone into the F-35, and the main configuration they are settling on, how competitive is this plane going to be in it's combined air interdiction/bombing role when compared to Russian & Chinese aircraft under development? Can it be upgraded to match them, or is the airframe and design permanently inferior?

It's not the F-35 that's going to be needing to do the matching.

Please, 'hcobb', do you have any details / references for your statement: "...The software problem is that the software has yet to be written..."? Thanks

I think what he means is that Blk2A was just released to CATB in Sep or Oct and that the USAF IOC version (Blk3D IIRC) has yet to be finished.

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 with development, how good is it?